all my work be praise

Park Avenue Christian is blessed to have Alice Parker and singers from Melodious Accord recording sacred choral music in our sanctuary this week.  It is such a gift to have your work day full of beautiful melodies, and Alice’s settings of hymns and spirituals are always so thoughtful and well-written, with great attentiveness to the color and character of the text.

The piece that is running through my head this morning is an elegant versification of Psalm 23, “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” from her Eight Appalachian Mountain Hymns.   I am busy, busy, busy these next two weeks, especially with many details before I head to Italy in early June, where I will be participating in a workshop of a new piece based on paintings of Mary, Jesus’ mother (more about that soon.)  While listening to this hymn (especially the last stanza), I was reminded that I can see all of these things to do as work or I can see them as an occasion to praise.  Even in the minute and sometimes infuriating details, I can thank the God who has given the gift of life and who sustains and tends to me always and everywhere.

And as work emerges out of a spirit of praise and thanksgiving it can and will reorient and redefine my priorities, values, and time frame. So that, even in the midst of many important and time-consuming tasks, I will find the rest and security of a beloved child of God.  Then the work can flow because my being is focused on faithfulness to God rather than overwhelmed by the tasks at hand, or bound up by perfectionism or fear of failure.  I will know what and how to do because I have taken to time to be.

My Shepherd will supply my need:
Jehovah is His Name;
In pastures fresh He makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.
He brings my wandering spirit back
When I forsake His ways,
And leads me, for His mercy’s sake,
In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death
Thy presence is my stay;
One word of Thy supporting breath
Drives all my fears away.
Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,
Doth still my table spread;
My cup with blessings overflows,
Thine oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days;
O may Thy house be my abode,
And all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger, nor a guest,
But like a child at home.
-Issac Watts

blessing and relationships

I recently finished “Gilead” by Marilyn Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a Congregational minister in Gilead, Iowa.  It is a fictional memoir written in the first-person with poignant descriptions of small town life, growing old and work in the church, but also contains brilliant passages that reflect on the meaning and mystery of life.  The book is stunning – simply beautiful – and I can’t recommend it enough.  I was moved to tears at several points not because it was sad or tragic but because it touches something so fundamental to our human experience.

One passage has stuck with me, related to the minister’s understanding of baptism and the act of blessing others.

“I still remember how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand.  Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing.  It stays in the mind.  For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them.  It still seems to me a real question.  There is a reality in blessing, which I take baptism to be, primarily.  It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that.  I have felt it pass through me, so to speak.  The sensation is of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.”

Over the past few months I have been seeing someone and it has been a beautiful time of learning and discovery.  We are slowly getting more comfortable sharing the deeper parts of ourselves with each other and I have found many of our talks and intimate moments to be much like Robinson’s character describes the act of blessing.  There is a sense of mystery, beauty and joy as you hold a person who has opened their heart, mind, body and soul to you.  Something wells up within me at those times and “deep speaks to deep,” as Henri Nouwen writes.  It is holy experience.

I grew up with an understanding of same-sex relationships as somehow incomplete or incorrect, and was told that one could not find fulfillment in them.  These were conclusions drawn from very different readings of scripture than I have come to accept today and I’m not going to open that can of worms in this entry.   My sense is that an understanding of gay relationships as flawed comes from a narrow/exclusive focus on the physical/sexual aspects of gay relationships – the mechanics, if you will, or their reproductive potential.  They appeal to some notion of what is “natural” in a biological sense but tend to completely ignore the deeper human and spiritual qualities that, to me, both include and transcend our bodies.  And this binary reading of relationships and of sexuality in general makes for a very simplistic, two-dimensional understanding of what it means to be human.

I don’t claim to have profound insights but in my process of discernment it is becoming clearer that relationships are sacramental, and in that respect they are mysterious and deeply personal.  Each one is an occasion to experience God’s presence in a real, tangible way in our lives.  There are as many different types of relationships as there are people, and there are different levels or dimensions in which they are expressed.  But the labels and particulars are secondary.  At the heart of them all – the partner, the friend, even the passing acquaintance or stranger – is this idea of blessing others.  We are not here just for our own satisfaction or pleasure.  Relationships are not simply about being happy or fulfilled (though healthy relationships often bring a sense of wholeness and satisfaction); they are about experiencing and seeing the sacred in and through others. They are about calling forth or naming others’ beauty, worth and potential.  And then, maybe in the process, we find the beauty, worth and potential in ourselves.

I believe that same-sex relationships require great care and thoughtfulness, might I even say prayerfulness.  We have freedom, a scary but equally exhilarating opportunity to define our relationships in the ways that we need to and want to.  Gender roles are not assumed; we do not have to be bound by many of the societal norms and expectations as heterosexual couples.  But I also believe that in our attempts to forge new ways of being together, we should not forget that the heart of all relationships is in an invitation to the mystery and wonder of life, an opportunity to know another deeply and to be deeply known.

My hands are made to bless,
to offer on behalf of others,
a prayer, a touch,
inner healing and life.

It is part of my calling
part of my own healing, perhaps,
to hold another beautiful soul
and to claim its beauty and worth,
to pray from a deep place for
its safety, peace, stability,
to ask that this soul know the
ground-shifting, life-reorienting love and grace
that I have heard spoken of and
glimpsed in unexpected moments in my own life.

I feel myself a broken vessel
into which something of great
beauty and value has been poured,
and I am grateful, and humbled,
and curious how it could be.

But I know that I am also called to be courageous,
to live in this holy paradox and to
seek God’s will in it,
to ask more deeply whose I am
and who I am
and what this this precious gift of life and love
are to accomplish in this beautiful, broken world.

believing in beloved

I feel like such a fair-weather blogger. Where some folks tend to their blogs incessantly, mine is for occasions when I really feel that there is something to say – something that seems important, pressing, or particularly vivid for me. And when life gets incredibly busy, as it has been these past months, the blog almost drops off of my list of priorities altogether. I came through the Advent and Christmas season in good spirits, a little tired after my first go-around in a new congregation but I think that’s to be expected. I was amazed at how quickly Epiphany flew by and I’m aghast that that we are at the beginning of Lent.

What has been on my heart so much these past weeks, and what is finally taking shape in my mind, is the ongoing challenge of staying balanced and centered when life is moving at a breakneck speed. New York is a stunning place to live and to work and I have have been telling friends that I am not just getting by but I feel that I am living and thriving here. Professional and personal connections are growing. My ministry at Park Avenue Christian Church keeps me very busy but there is much to celebrate – joy and a sense of play in our work together, while striving to make music of high quality and from diverse styles and traditions. We recently began a new Youth Chorale that is contributing regularly to worship. This ministry offers free music training to young people in the city but asks them come to weekly rehearsals and to sing every Sunday. They are doing a wonderful job and I have been touched by their energy and spirit.

I am settled in my apartment and my life has a certain orderliness and regularity which has really helped to give me a sense of place. And I have a growing relationship with a wonderful man, which is not something that I exactly planned (who does?!) but it feels so good to share time together. I haven’t talked much about my relationships on the blog, partly because I have been single for the past two and half years, but this connection feels qualitatively different than any I have had before and I am very excited.

But the blessing of many good things happening at the same time also has a shadow side for me.  In the middle of all this, I have found it difficult to stay centered!  I begin to derive my sense of well being and worth from the feeling of being busy and productive, from how connected or distant I feel in my relationships, or how I feel others are responding to me as a leader or as a person. On those days when things don’t go as well as I had hoped, when I make mistakes or disappoint those I love (or even worse disappoint myself), when I sit down to practice and my fingers or feet feel clumsy, when I feel creatively dry and barren…I find myself so quickly teetering toward negativity and anger. There are many fears, some real and others self-imposed; so many voices with varied or conflicting opinions and perspectives; so many doubts that often plague my inner life. It is amazing how quickly I find myself in a funk, or even if not even that extreme, just feeling closed off from the world and others. It can be as simple as a word or a glance from someone.

As I look back on this past Epiphany season, God has been speaking consistently, even insistently, to me in the midst of my busyness. It all began back in early January with the Baptism of Christ, the descent of the Holy Spirit on Christ and his affirmation as the “beloved One.” The season also ended with the voice from the cloud speaking similar words: “This is my beloved Child; listen to him.” But I didn’t expect to hear them again on the First Sunday of Lent, this time from the Gospel of Mark and as a preface to Jesus’ wandering in the wilderness for 40 days. Every time I encounter these words they resonate deeply within me, especially since my personal story of faith has been shaped by the understanding that I am God’s beloved, too.  There is nothing I can do to earn God’s love, no way that I can get away from it. It has been and will always be a constant.

But the challenge for me (and maybe for all of us) is remaining “in” that love, especially when life is busy, even with the work of the Church! The crazy thing is that I am rather addicted to the feeling that I get when I am busy with “God’s work.” I have gotten strangely accustomed to the idea of running around doing a million things to prepare for worship each week (almost neurotic over-preparation). Though I know I’m not a complete control freak, there is a part of me that enjoys being at the center of things. As much as I sometimes lament the fact that much of the music program in my church leads directly back to me, I sort of like the control. There have been times in the past when I wondered whether I could take a Sunday or two off because I feared whether things would go alright without me there. Yes, perhaps there is real care and concern for my congregation written into that but as I’m typing it, it also sounds really creepy. It sounds like there is a part of me that needs to be needed and I’m not sure if that is living into my identity as a beloved child of God!  If the church is really about the people of God doing the work of ministry and not paid ministers doing it for them, is my constant presence enabling others to step into leadership roles or inviting them to come alongside me as partners in ministry?  Or is it really a glorified one-man band? I am struggling to see whether my understanding of myself as God’s beloved has really permeated deeply into all parts of my life, especially into that most vital expression of vocation in the church.

I had a great conversation with a friend and mentor today and he said something that really got me thinking. He mentioned that sometimes it is important for those of us who serve the church to make ourselves scarce – not to bury ourselves more deeply in the work but to gently step away and let our absence be recognized and felt by the community. It can give a very subtle cue that we are not indispensable, but it is also a healthy reminder to ourselves that we are not. Though I know that Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness were in preparation for his public ministry, the Gospels are clear that even amid the almost relentless pace of his ministry, he regularly retreated to a quiet and lonely place to pray. He made himself scarce.

I am seriously thinking that maybe part of my Lenten journey this year, and part of the ongoing inner work that I need to do as a leader in the church, is to find ways to consciously step back from my ministry and to take the time that I need to rest, relax and remind myself that my work (even what seems like good and important and necessary labor for the Kingdom) needs to be seen in the light of God’s extravagant love for me and for the people that I am called to serve. It is a challenge, especially in a fast-paced place like New York City and in a growing congregation with lots of new programs and potential. But my spiritual health and the health of my congregation will be served by my ability to hold onto things lightly, to invite God’s peace and non-anxious presence not just into personal situations and challenges, but into my ministry in the church.

Am I the only person who has struggled with this?  I would really love to hear from others out there who may have found a healthy balance and are finding ways to living into their belovedness within the context of their ministry.